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Chapter by Chapter ResourcesChapter 1 Europe: A continent in the making
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As one would expect in a continent whose countries vary so much in size and historical development, the European economy is characterised by variation. Postcommunist and (to an extent) southern European states are less well-off, but in most cases only relatively so. There are also big differences between regions in the same country.
Europe is an important part of the wider global economy but the growth of intra-European trade is just as important. Europe's economy is not heading downhill, but it has a stubborn - though not equally distributed - unemployment problem.
Despite most economies being 'post-industrial', there are persistent and patterned variations between the kind of capitalism in operation in individual countries, and similar variation characterises Europe's still relatively large welfare regimes. Postcommunist countries may be developing into hybrids of these styles and regimes but few are going down the 'American' road toward a more minimal state.
Class and income and gender inequalities also remain persistent.
Europe's population is ageing faster than in any other part of the world outside Japan.
Though not quite as much as in the USA, and despite a big drop in church attendance, religion still matters in Europe. An increase in the number of Muslims also means that Europe is far from an entirely secular society.
Because of long-term migration, Europe has become racially more diverse, although there have been ethnic minorities in many countries for hundreds of years.
The extent to which people think of themselves as 'European' varies according to social characteristics but also across countries.
People in the former 'East' and 'West' may show statistically significant variations in politically relevant values, but nowhere near significant enough to prevent us from considering a once-divided continent in its entirety once more.
(For general web materials on European Politics see
Tim Bale's Internet Guide)
Handy maps of Europe are provided by the University of Texas
Human Development Reports are provided by the United Nations
European economic statistics are collated by the United Nations
Useful facts and figures on European countries are made available by Worldatlas
and Nationmaster
More advanced facts and figures are provided by the CIA
For more on the Cold War, see CNN
For different takes on the Twentieth Century, check out this PBS site
To get more detail on particular eras of European history, consult the experts at
historyteacher.net
For history on a country-by-country basis, try this European history site http://europeanhistory.about.com/
For insightful and in-depth reporting on contemporary Europe, try Time Magazine
, the Economist, WorldNews, the
BBC and CNN
To find out what Europeans are thinking, try Eurobarometer
1. Different countries have risen and fallen in pre-eminence in Europe over the last five hundred years. Pick one or two examples: why and how do you think it gained and then lost status?
2. What do you think drove Europe toward two world wars in the first half of the twentieth century? And how, in your opinion, has it managed to avoid something similar happening since then?
3. There may have been no world war after 1945 but there was a Cold War. Was such a conflict inevitable and why do you think did it came to an end?
4. Why is there so much economic variation between but also within European countries? And what does it mean to say that they are almost all 'post-industrial'?
5. The new democracies of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) have had to adapt to life after communism: can you point to particular successes and failures?
6. How would you define globalization and what impact, if any, is it having on Europe? If you are opposed to it, why?
7. Europeanization doesn't mean that all the continent's countries are becoming more like each other. How does the organisation and extent of welfare in different states, for instance, illustrate this point?
8. It's often assumed that Europe is becoming more classless, gender-blind, and secular. Do you think that's the case?
9. Why might it be unrealistic to talk about Europeans, or, for that matter, about, say, Britons or Spaniards or Belgians or Cypriots or Slovaks or Estonians or Latvians?
Welcome to the Club: the EU's new member states in Central and Eastern Europe
Poland: settling down or still wide open?
Germany's Grand Coalition, 2005-?
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